This chapter features Rain of Ice, which concerns the final hours of an old prostitute, Tamayo, who slips in and out of consciousness. Written by Hasegawa Shigure—Japan's first woman playwright—the ...
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This chapter features Rain of Ice, which concerns the final hours of an old prostitute, Tamayo, who slips in and out of consciousness. Written by Hasegawa Shigure—Japan's first woman playwright—the play is dark and starkly naturalistic, a far cry from the colorful kabuki historical and dance plays for which she had made a reputation. And the play's setting provides an economical dramatic structure for examining her main character's wretched life and her tortured relationships with her only friend, Otoku, and her daughter, Toyoko, who appears to be unwittingly having an affair with a man who may in fact be her own father.Less

Hasegawa Shigure : Rain of Ice

M. Cody Poulton

Published in print: 2010-05-31

This chapter features Rain of Ice, which concerns the final hours of an old prostitute, Tamayo, who slips in and out of consciousness. Written by Hasegawa Shigure—Japan's first woman playwright—the play is dark and starkly naturalistic, a far cry from the colorful kabuki historical and dance plays for which she had made a reputation. And the play's setting provides an economical dramatic structure for examining her main character's wretched life and her tortured relationships with her only friend, Otoku, and her daughter, Toyoko, who appears to be unwittingly having an affair with a man who may in fact be her own father.

In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century ...
More

In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century Japanese drama and includes translations of representative one-act plays. The book looks at the emergence of drama as a modern literary and artistic form and chronicles the creation of modern Japanese drama as a reaction to both traditional (particularly kabuki) dramaturgy and European drama. Translations and productions of the latter became the model for the so-called New Theatre (shingeki), where the question of how to be both modern and Japanese at the same time was hotly contested. Following introductory chapters on the development of Japanese drama from the 1880s to the early 1930s, are translations of nine seminal one-act plays by nine dramatists, including two women, Okada Yachiyo and Hasegawa Shigure. The subject matter of these plays is that of modern drama everywhere: discord between men and women, between parents and children, and the resulting disintegration of marriages and families. Realism prevails as the mode of modernity, but other styles are presented: the symbolism of brittle melodrama, minimalistic lyricism, politically incisive expressionism, and a proto-absurdist work by Japan's master of prewar drama, Kishida Kunio.Less

A Beggar's Art : Scripting Modernity in Japanese Drama, 1900-1930

M. Cody Poulton

Published in print: 2010-05-31

In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century Japanese drama and includes translations of representative one-act plays. The book looks at the emergence of drama as a modern literary and artistic form and chronicles the creation of modern Japanese drama as a reaction to both traditional (particularly kabuki) dramaturgy and European drama. Translations and productions of the latter became the model for the so-called New Theatre (shingeki), where the question of how to be both modern and Japanese at the same time was hotly contested. Following introductory chapters on the development of Japanese drama from the 1880s to the early 1930s, are translations of nine seminal one-act plays by nine dramatists, including two women, Okada Yachiyo and Hasegawa Shigure. The subject matter of these plays is that of modern drama everywhere: discord between men and women, between parents and children, and the resulting disintegration of marriages and families. Realism prevails as the mode of modernity, but other styles are presented: the symbolism of brittle melodrama, minimalistic lyricism, politically incisive expressionism, and a proto-absurdist work by Japan's master of prewar drama, Kishida Kunio.